Having thus declared Mr. Town to confift of two feparate individuals, it will perhaps be expected, that, like two tradefimen, who have agreed to diffolve their partnership, we thould exactly balance our accounts, and affign to each his due parcel of the ftock. But our ccounts are of fo intricate a nature, that it would be impoffible for us to adJust them in that manner. We have ot only joined in the work taken altoether, but almost every fingle paper is the joint product of both: and, as we have laboured equally in erecting the fabric, we cannot pretend, that any one particular part is the fole workmanship of either. An hint has perhaps been Started by one of us, improved by the other, and still further heightened by an Sappy coalition of fentiment in both:

fire is truck out by a mutual collifion ef flint and steel. Sometimes, like Strada's lovers converfing with the sympathetic needles, we have written papers together at fifty miles diftance from each other: the first rough draught or loofe minutes of an effay have often travelled in the stage coach from town to country, and from country to town; and we have frequently waited for the poft man (whom we expected to bring us the precious remainder of a Connoiffeur) with the fame anxiety, as we fhould wait for the half of a bank note, without which the other half would be of no value. Thefe our joint labours, it may easily be imagined, would have foon broke off abruptly, if either had been too fondly attached to his own little conceits, or if we had converfed together with the jealoufy of a rival, or the complaifance of a formal acquaintance, who fmiles at every word that is faid by his companion. Nor could this work have been fo long carried on, with fo much chear fulness and good humour on both fides, if the Two had not been as closely united, as the two Students, whom the Spectator mentions, as recorded by a Terra Filius at Oxford, to have had ⚫ but one mind, one purse, one chamber, and one hat.'

It has been often remarked, that the reader is very defirous of picking up fome little particulars concerning the author of the book which he is perufing.

To gratify this paffion, many literary anecdotes have been published, and an account of their life, character, and behaviour, has been prefixed to the works of our most celebrated writers. Effayifts are commonly expected to be their own Biographers: and perhaps our readers may require fome further intelligence concerning the Authors of the Connoiffeur. But, as they have all along, appeared as a fort of Sofias in literature, they cannot now defcribe themselves any otherwife, than as one and the fame perfon; and can only fatisfy the curiosity of the public, by giving a fort account of that refpectable perfonage Mr. Town, confidering him as of the plural, or rather (according to the Græcians) of the dual number.

Mr. Town is a fair, black, middlefized, very fhort man. He wears his own hair and a periwig. He is about thirty years of age, and not more than four and twenty. He is a Student of the Law, and a Bachelor of Phyfic. He was bred at the University of Oxford; where having taken no less than three degrees, he looks down on many learned profeffors as his inferiors: yet, having been there but little longer than to take the first degree of Bachelor of Arts, it has more than once happened, that the Cenfor-General of all England has been reprimanded by the Cenfor of his College, for neglecting to furnish the ufual Effay, or (in the collegiate phrafe) the Theme of the week.

This joint defcription of ourfelves will, we hope, fatisfy the reader, without any further information. For our own parts, we cannot but be pleased with having raised this monument of our mu tual friendship and efteem: and if these essays shall continue to be read, now they will no longer make their appearance as the fugitive pieces of the week, we shall be happy in confidering, that we are mentioned at the fame time. We have all the while gone on, as it were, hand in hand together: and while we are both employed in furnishing matter for the paper now before us, we cannot help fmiling at our thus making our exit together, like the Two Kings of Brentford fmelling at one nofegay. T. W. O.